1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the production of Fe-B molten metal.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Amorphous alloys consisting mainly of Fe-B have excellent properties as electromagnetic materials. When amorphous alloys are used as a core material of a transformer, the iron loss of the amorphous alloy is about 1/3 that of conventional grain-oriented silicon steel sheets but there is a problem in the production cost. About half of the cost for producing an amorphous ribbon is now the price of boron, so that it is important to obtain a method for producing boron-containing materials in a low cost.
Heretofore, boron itself has been produced by burning boric acid and by reducing the acid with Al or Mg metal, or by electrolyzing molten boric acid with potassium chloride, or by reducing boron chloride with hydrogen and the like, but in any methods, elementary boron is expensive, so that boron is not suitable for a starting material for Fe-B electromagnetic materials.
Ferroboron is smelted by thermit process with aluminum or an electric furnace process but the thermit process is not suitable for an amorphous material, because Al is included in ferroboron and the electric furnace process has a problem in a high price, because an amount of electric power consumed is high.